Iryna Dovhan

Iryna Dovhan (Ukrainian: Ірина Володимирівна Довгань; born 25 January 1962) is a Ukrainian activist and a native of Yasynuvata (a Donetsk suburb), who was abducted in 2014 by pro-Russian insurgents of the Vostok Battalion. She says that she was beaten and humiliated for five days. According to her testimony, she was held in jail and interrogated before being handed over to mercenaries, apparently from North Ossetia, who subjected her to torture, calling her a fascist and forcing her to shout "Sieg Heil", repeatedly shooting pistols next to her ears and threatening to rape her. She was freed on August 28 after, Mark Franchetti, a reporter for the British newspaper The Sunday Times, and Dmitry Beliakov, a Russian freelance photographer, pleaded with leader Alexander Khodakovsky to release her. Khodakovsky ordered Iryna Dovhan freed and vowed to discipline those responsible for her detention and public humiliation. She has since left Donetsk and joined her family in Mariupol, a city then-controlled by Ukrainian forces.